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LETTER 

TO MINISTERS AND ELDERS, ON THE SIN OF HOLDING SLAVES, 
AND THE DUTY OF IMMEDIATE EMANCIPATION. 



BY JAMES G. BIRNEY. 



TO THE MINISTERS AND ELDERS OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH 
IN KENTUCKY. 

Dear Brethren— I have conchided to address to you a few 
remarks on the subject of slavery-one that has for a long 
time, deeply interested my own heart, and on which 1 have 
bestowed very careful consideration. Were I to set you down 
as indifferent to it, I know it would be doing you great injus- 
tice Indeed, so much do I count upon your right desires in 
relation to it, that although 1 come clothed with no official 
authority in that branch of God's church to which we belong, 
vet do 1 presume that you will read, meditate upon, and with 
a just balance, weigh, any arguments, that maybe submitted 
to vou in a Christian spirit, come frotn what quarter they may. 
It is not my intention at this time, to take up the whole 
subject of slavery, and discuss it in its details, or to answer 
the multiplied excuses that have been made by Christians and 
others, for the help they have brought for its continuance 1 
mean rather to present : 1. Some of the most promiiient char- 
acteristics of slavery. 2. Some of the excuses oi our church 
for not purifying herself from this sin, which answers to them ; 
and 3 The consequences to the church and the state at large, 
if she should at once enter upon her duty. The characteristics 
to which I now ask your attention, are— 

1 It originated, has always been, and is at this day, main- 
tained by a violence that is utterly at variance with the mild 
spirit of the gospel. . , . • *i, • 

2 It wrests from one set of men, without crime on their 
part, the fruits of their bodily toils, for the support and ease 
of another. .^ . , a^4.u.. 

3 Its effects upon its subjects are to stupify and benumb the 
mind, to vitiate the conscience, to multiply the sins of the 
grossest character, to exclude the knowledge of God ana 
Christ, as well as of the necessity of any preparation for tne 
world to come, and of course, to prepare them for hell. 



73789 



JAMES G. BiKNEY'S 



4. Its effects upon those wlio maintain it, and in some mea- 
sure upon those who witness and consent to it, are indolence, 
diahohcal passions, deadness to the claims of justice and the 
calls of mercy, a woricily spirit, ?nd contempt for a large por- 
tion of our fellow-creatures ; therefore, as far as their qualifi- 
cations for an eternal state are modified by slavery, it rathei 
prepares them for the sentence of the damned than for the 
invitation of the blessed. 

That the above are some, but by no means all of the char- 
acteristics of slavery, no one, with our opportunities of wit- 
nessing the thing itself, will deny. Now, does it not seem 
passing strange, that a " monster of such hideous mien" should 
have been received within the very midst of the churcli of God 
— that it should find in its bosom, its surest and softest resting 
place — that it should be fondled, sleeked and cherished there ? 
and that if any one attempt to tear him from his lodgment, 
with one consent all cry out, " Let him alone ! let him alone 1 
ive have become so accustomed to his presence, that much 
of his deformity has been taken away, and we cannot do with- 
out him ; we are preparing him for his discharge, which, as 
he is slow to learn, he will probably be ready for, in some 
hundred or two years : then he can be dismissed without injury 
to any one concerned ; but don't disturb him now ; he is very 
quiet, all things are going on well. Make what preparation 
you please for his future dismission, but by no means touch 
him at this time. The church ! the church ! you'll endanger 
the church, and make it more unpopular than it now is. I 
charge you, wait for a ' more convenient season.' God is 
opening the way for his discharge in his own good time. If 
you attempt it iioil\ you will not only utterly fail, because all 
the church will be against you ; and besides, they will call 
you, and join with those who are without in calling you, a 
madman and a fanatic — and your influence will be destroyed.'' 
This is no caricature ; it is solemn, serious truth ; should it 
be denied, there are " clouds of witnesses" to prove it. But 
to return, it would make this address too long, were I to 
notice exceptions which the scrupulous might raise ; or stop 
to present modifications that I might under other circum- 
stances think it desirable to make, of my positions ; or to for- 
tify myself carefully as I proceed with defences as if I were 
contending with enemies. I shall not detain you to do so. 1 
write not to cavillers, nor to such as are determined to remain 
unmoved by any thing that can be said ; but to brethren be- 
loved, as I trust by our common Lord, who are willing to do 
whatever may hasten his glorious reign on earth, and add to 
their own eternal weight of glory in heaven. 

If then slavery be characterized by violence, oppression, 
injustice — by tendencies to the ruin of the souls of both master 









SECOND LETTER. 3 

and slave — why should yon hesitate to say it ought to cease 
at once ? You reply, The Bible does not decisively condemn 
slavery. In support of this you say: 1. Abraham, the father 
of the faithful and the friend of God, had servants, or as you 
would render it, " slaves." Now admitting all that is asked 
in the case of Abraham, and that the word translated " ser- 
vants" means "slaves," it will be found to prove a great deal 
more than you desire. For if it be argued — because he had 
slaverj, therefore / may have them, it will equally follow that 
prevarication, if not falsehood, and concubinage may be justi- 
fied ; for Abraham was guilty of both. But the word " servants," 
I apprehend, means here the subjects of Abraham, as a prince. 
The same word is used in reference to the courtiers of Saul, 
and to the most confidential part of the faithful little army that 
adhered to David during his persecutions by Saul. And in the 
9th chapter of the first of Kings, it is used in exact contrast to 
"bondmen." Besides all tiiis, in the same chapter in which 
the persons who constituted the army of Abraham are called 
his " servants," the patriarch himself calls thern "young men." 

2. The Hebrews were directed to make slaves ^)f the sur- 
rounding nations. Tliis is very true, when applied to the 
seven nations particularly mentioned in the 7th chapter of 
Deuteronomy, who for their sins had been devoted to destruc- 
tion. But does it follow, because the people whom God had 
specially selected as the instrument to execute his judgments, 
and had on this account excepted from the great law of love 
to the stranger, that lue are excepted from the obligation of this 
law ? Every exception to a general law must be specially 
pleaded; and, according to the demands of common sense, 
clearly proved. To show the absurdity of this excuse : If the 
sheriff of Fayette county should execute a murderer, in pur- 
suance of the sentence of death duly pronounced upon him, 
would this act, entirely justifiable, because directed by proper 
authority, furnish even an excusatory plea, much less one 
that would go to the entire justification of the sheriffof «no?/?ej- 
county, for having put to death an innocent man, uncondemned 
by any form of law, merely for the gratification of his own 
malignant temper, or for the promotion of some selfish pur- 
pose ] It is useless to give an answer to this statement. 

3. The Savior himself said nothing in condemnation of 
slavery, although it existed in great aggravation while he was 
upon earth. He said nothing about it, and to my apprehen- 
sion for this very good reason, that he did not preach to the 
Romans, or to the people of any other country where slavery- 
prevailed, but to the .lews, among whom the abolition princi- 
ples of Moses' laws had already very nearly, if not entirely 
extinguished it. On the same principle we may account for 
his silence concerning many practices that are condemned by 



ft JAMES G. BIRNEY S 

the spirit of his gospel, such as gamblings, gladiatorial and 
other cruel exhibitions, and offcMisivc and ambitious wars, so 
common in his time, and carried to such enormity by the 
Romans and other Gentiles. 

4. But Paul and Peter establish, or recognize as estabhshed, 
the rehition of master and servant, (slave,) when they give 
admonition to both as to their reciprocal behavior. It is 
very certain that this would not have been done, they being 
holy and inspired men, if the relation itself was sinful; or if 
there vi^as any thing in the subjection of one human being to 
the will and caprice of another that was forbidden by God's 
law. Now if the w^ord '■'servant'''' be used by Peler and Paul 
to mean '■^slaves'''' exclusivel}- — a meaning I adm.t only that 
the excuse may have all the force it can claim — iheir exhor- 
tation to persons in this condition amounts to no more than 
what had been impressed before upon all who were, or might 
become, the victims of injustice or oppression, to bear it pa- 
iiently. It was given with the same object and in the same 
spirit as the command of the Savior himself, that the perse- 
cuted should pray for their persecutors. Had it been a connnon 
evil during the nunistry of Paul and Peter to which Christians 
were exposed, to be cast into prison by the lawless power of 
individual persecutors, would the exhortations of these apos- 
tles to them to bear their sufferings with resignation and 
meekness, establish or recognise as established the relation 
of persecutor and persecuted ? or authorize Christian.^ lo ex- 
ercise grievous oppressions upon one another, or upon such 
of the heathen as they might be able to circunn^ent and bring 
into their power T Or when Paul, through Titus, admonishes 
his brethren to be "subject to principalities and powers, and 
to obey magistrates," does he in the slightest manner sanction 
the imperial atrocities of a Nero, a Douiitian, or any of their 
legitimate successors until now] I know you will say he 
does not; and that he would have condemned in the conduct 
of those tyrants towards their obscurest subjects whatever 
was inconsistent with the gr(!at and ui\iversaliy binding law, 
" Thou shalt do unto others as ye would that they should do 
unto you." If then Nero, for example, had suiimitted to the 
gospel that Paul proclaimed in his capitol, and become an 
obedient disciple of the apostles— although he might have 
retained the poivcr and authority oi an emperor, yet his op- 
pressions, his cruelties, would have ceased, the very temper 
that prompted them would have been suppressed, his power 
would have been put forth for good, not for evil, and he would 
have been seen a prince dispensing justice in mere}', and find- 
ing his own happiness in that wliich he daily scattered over a 
grateful people. Would he under Paul's discipline have seized 
upon the poor, the weak, the defencelcbs of his empire, that 



SECOND LETTER. O 

he might exact from them toil unrequited during their whole 
hves, and consign them, and their innocent children after them, 
to social and civil degradation in the midst of happy millions 
— to personal bondage — to mental darkness — to the power of 
vice and the dominion of sin — to hopelessness in this world — 
to shame and everlasting contempt in that which is to come? 
Or had the converting grace of God found liim acting the 
bloody and relentless tyrant, and thus fulfilling his relation to 
the oppressed, w^ould he, Paul being his teacher, have con- 
tinued it during his life 1 And not content with this, would 
he — calhng upon Paul to indite his last will and testament — 
have perpetuated by legacy to his issue this continually grow- 
ing mass of blood and gro;ms — of misery and tears.* But let 
us come down from the tyrant over millions to his miniature 
— brandishing the ensign of his authority over some half 
dozen of his iellow-creatures — and see how the matter stands. 
You insist that Paul recognised — that is, acknowledged to be 
right — the relation of master and servant among his cotera- 
poraries ; of course that it could not have been wrong fheti, 
when tested by the great principles of man's duty to his fellow- 
man, preached by him in his own time, and which we consider 
ns preached to all persons since. The inference you would 
deduce from these premises — one which is unavoidable — is, 
that as these principles can never change, as they v/ere in- 
tended for tlie direction of men in all time, (to say nothing of 
eternity,) this relation t/icn right, must be so 7icw. This I be- 
lieve is a fair statement of the position assumed, on this pas- 
sage, by the Scriptural advocate for contimied slavery. Ad- 
mitting all the premises to be true, the conclusion to which 
you have come would be altogether undeniable ; and we would 
be authorized now to inflict upon our fellow-men, white or 

* Tlie natural tendency of slavery is to the second death — of liberty, to eternal 
life although there are exceptions in both — s]aves frequently giving good evidence 
of piety, and men who are /rcc aliasing their freedom to their destruction. The 
slaveholder, then, is engaged in maintaining a system wliich leads to death, whilst 
God IS rnaiiitaniing one which leads to life. The slaveholder is conducting his 
five, ten, or twenty slaves down to the pit, whilst God is striving, as far as he 
thinks proper to nifluence rational mind, to raise tiiem to heaven. What a reflec- 
tion for the disciple of the merciful Savior I Let him not stop here, but make a 
calculation of the increase of his slaves for the next twenty, fifty, or hundred 
years, (it is too awfui to proceed further,) taking for his basis the increase of the 
whole initiiber of slaves in the Thiited States for the last forty years, that he may 
.see what tnultitudes lie is, as far as we can tell, qualifying for perdition. The 
Christian who holds slaves during his own life, and 'wills' them to his children 
afterwards, is doing, according to my poor appreliension, all that he cm do to defeat 
the btnevolent purposes of God. (These ^ wills ^ will be bloody evidences at the 
judgment seat of Christ.) He sins himself, and produces suffering as long as 
God gives him the physical power— not satisfied with this, he fastens the habit 
of suff'-ring on his slaves and their posterity, and the habit oi sinmnsj on his own. 
Maytlioi e not be strong grounds to fear, that, as he has been chief in this world 
in the dread preparation for misery, he will be fearfully pre-eminent in the dread 
retributions of that which is to come ? Can such a one dwell in the presence of 
a God of mercy ? If he can, tell me I pray you, in what part of the Bible you find 
a warrant for your belief ? 1 have not yet found it. 
1* 



6 JAMES G. BIRNEY*S 

black, who miglit be reduced into our power, all the enormi- 
ties of iionian or Grecian slavery. 

But there is an essential part of your premises — the appro- 
bation of Paul of the injustice and cruelty of the master, cov- 
ered up under the very comprehensive word, relation, that I 
apprelKMid is very far from beintr maintainable : For if it can 
be maintained, it nuist be by making him nullify all those prin- 
ciples of moral action whicii he had been imceasingly incul- 
cating upon his fellow-men, and of which he had been giving 
in his own conduct a briuht exan^ple. For if this relation, [in 
which are to be included all the atrocious powers conferred 
by the Roman laws in the time of Paul, as well as the powers, 
not much less atrocious, exercised in some parts of our own 
country now,] be right ; it follow^s consequentially, that to do 
any thing fairly necessary in the estimation of the superior in 
the relation, to maintain it, cannot be wrong. Thus, among 
the Romans, masters could put their slaves to death at plea- 
sure ; and it w^as done with great cruelty and frequency : they 
kept their slaves chained to the door-posts as janitors, they 
branded them in the forehead, and, if the master was slain at 
his own house and the murderer undiscovered, all his domestic 
slaves were liable to be put to death. Under this power, four 
hundred were put to death on a single occasion. Will you 
drive the iipostle to a recognition of such horrible deeds'? To 
an acknowledgment that they were right 1 That there was in 
tjicm no violation of the great law of love ? No, yon reply; 
this is too horrible. I rejoin, and say, that you cannot then, 
on your own principle, charge him with the recognition of any 
violation, how small soever it may seem, of this law. For 
the same purpose, (the maintenance of the relation,) it may 
be though t necessary by masters among us, to keep back the 
liire of the laborers who reap down their fields, (this is injus- 
tice) — that if a slave, in obedience to the very constitution of 
man's nature, when self-interest, the mainspring of action is 
taken from him, become indolent — if he be reluctant to spend 
gratuitously for another that property which the great Author 
of his being has given him in his own physical powers, in his 
own bones and nuiscles and sinews — he may be beaten and 
scourged to any extent, however cruel, till this indolence, this 
reluctance to an unrequited transfer of his labor to another, 
this natinvil tendency to self-indulgence be overcome. (This 
is oppression.) To the same end, it may be necessary, in the 
opinion of the master, in order to derive that profit from the 
relation which only makes it worthy to be maintained, that 
marriages among his slaves be discouraged, and a gross state 
of concubinage permitted; that the wife be torn at midnight, 
from the man of her love, and her screamiufr (diildren wrung 
from her frantic grasp ; that the husband find his manly arms, 



SECOND LETTER. 7 

intended for the protection of his helpless offspring, bound in 
the weighty and sure fetters of the southern slaver; and the 
last, the sole atom of earthly jiappiriess they were all enjoy- 
ing, cast upon the winds. This is cruelty unniixcd — and to 
justify it, you bring the noble-minded apostle who suffered 
persecutions without number, distress and death, that he might 
bring men to love one another!!! 

Furtlier: It might be that the whole life of a master would 
be passed in the perpetration of injustice, the exercise of cru- 
elty and oppression ; that a relation might be perpetuated 
v/hose substance is the aliment of the most overbearing des- 
potism on the one part, and the vilest abjectness on the other. 
If the sins tiiat may be said to be inherent in slavery — if in- 
justice, cruelty and oppression were habitually committed 
against persons not in the relation, and unrepented of, the per- 
petrator, by the judgment of all men, would be damned for 
ever — if they were committed against our white "neighbors," 
a furnace as hot as Nebuchadnezzar's would be too cool for 
them. Yet, notwithstanding his character may, by the indul- 
gence of the worst passions against his slaves, have become 
as mean, as vicious, as degraded, and as unfit for the society 
of the just made perfect, as if he had indulged them against 
free persons, and his equals in society; because, forsooth, his 
slaves are in the relation., there seems to be no harm done, and 
at his death he is taken up to heaven, where all this treatment 
of his slaves, they being in the relation, goes for nothing. 
Thus it would appear that Paul and Peter, after exhorting men 
to do all — even to their eating and drinking for the glory of 
God — to be holy in all manner of conversation, are found sup- 
porting a relation whose sole object is, on the one side tempo- 
rary convenience, at the expense of personal degradation on 
the other, and the moral pollution of both — whose universal 
tendencies upon the parties concerned, and upon society at 
large, have been mischievous, polluting and unholy. To these 
apostles I do not think can fairly be attributed such miserable 
logic to support such miserable morals. 

For furtlier illustration : suppose that during the ministry 
of Paul, a Christian slave at Colosse, thinking himself treated 
in an unchristian manner by his Christian master, had brought 
his case before the church whilst Paul was on a visit to that 
city. He would allege against his master, that instead of 
giving him, as Paul had directed, what was just and equal for 
his services, he gave him nothing but his i'ood and clothing, 
and these in many instances adjusted to his wants wdth the 
most scrupulous nicety ; that his " threatenings" were many, 
and his scourgings not a few. The master may be supposed 
to have admitted all the facts of the case, and to have justified 
himself in such words as these : " As to the command to give 



8 JAMES G. BIRNEY's 

my slave what is just and equal, I have never interpreted it to 
mean what the standard of justice among equals would re- 
quire ; but rather that I should give him just what suited my 
convenience : and as to giving him what is equal, or, as he 
understands it, a fair equivalent for his services, it never once 
entered my head — for I might as well have no slave at all as 
to do ihis ; indeed, he would, if this be the meaning of it, soon 
bo as free as I am. And as to the threatenings and scourgings 
that I have bestowed upon him, his own insolent claims, now 
reiterated — have justly provoked them : Tliey are absolutely 
necessary to keep him humble and obedient, make him know 
his place, and to perpetuate the relation wdiich you yourself 
have recognised, and know^ ought by all means to be main- 
tained." What now do you think Paul would have done, after 
heariijg such an harangue as this? Would he have sent for 
the Plirygian slave code, have collated the law^s, and heard tes- 
timony as to all the recognised and approved customs of op- 
pression? Or would he have taken up the word of God, the 
perfect law of liberty, and quoted to him, "m all things what- 
soever ye tcoidd that men should do unto you, do ye even so unto 
them ?" Brethren, if such a case should be brought before 
you, how would you decide ! — By the laws and customs of 
slavery as they exist in Kentucky, or b}^ the hook of God 1 If 
by the latter, what becomes of slavery 1 It is shivered to 
atoms. 

In the most flourishing period of Greece, women held a 
very degraded rank ; they were considered rather as the slaves 
than the companions of man. There is no proof that in the 
time of the apostle, during her declension, their condition was 
in any manner ameliorated. Among the Romans, it was per- 
mitted to men to divorce their wives at pleasure, with or 
without cause. 

By the Roman laws, absolute power over the child was 
given to the parent, even to tlie selling of him into slavery, 
or to the taking away of his life. Power almost as unlimited 
was given to tlie creditor over his insolvent debtor. If any 
one v/as indebted to several persons, and could not find a cau- 
tioner, (security,) his body, according to some, might be cut 
to pieces and divided among his creditors. 

Now, Christianity recognises these relations, also; and at 
the very time, too, when all the enormities perpetrated by the 
superiors in the relation were authorised by law. Yet, what 
Christian allowing even that there were no restraints of mu- 
nicipal laws— would, at this day, justify or palliale the unpro- 
voked dismission of a wife, or unfeeling and dishonorable 
treatment of her, on the part of a husband professing Chris- 
tianity, on the plea, that as Paul had recognised the relation 
as it then was, every thing that was then practised under 



SECOND LETTER. 9 

was allowable now 1 Or who is there, that, on the same prin- 
ciple, would justify a Christian parent for seUing his child into 
slavery, or for taking away his life on any provocation 1 — or 
a Christian creditor who would insist upon his rights, " de de- 
hitore in paries secundo^'' in reference to his insolvent debtor % 
No one : because Christianity, although recognising these, 
and whatever other relations may be necessary for the real 
welfare of society, has cleansed them from every foreign and 
hurtful ingredient ; she has lopped off from them every tiling 
that is offensive to her own purity, and injurious to their most 
healthful and salutary exercise. Whilst she exacts from the 
wife, subjection, she has secured her from all degradation by 
requiring the husband to honor his wife. Whilst children are 
taught obedience to parents in all things not inconsistent with 
their higher duties to God, they are protected from injury and 
outrage by the requisition upon the parents to rear them in 
the nurture and admonition of the Lord, and to lead lives of 
piety themselves. And the creditor, in one of the beautiful 
parables of the Savior, is exhorted by the highest motive that 
can affect man, his own happiness, to be merciful to the unfor- 
tunate and ruined debtor. The consequence has been, and 
always will be, that in societies where the duties of these re- 
lations have been performed in accordance with these direc- 
tions of wisdom, there has been more of domestic happiness 
and spiritual comfort, as well as of social order, and of intel- 
lectual and moral and political power. liCt slavery as it exists 
among us be tested by the same rules that have been applied 
so successfully for their melioration to the relations above 
mentioned ; let it undergo the same Christian purgation that 
they have, and what will remain of it? Nottiing but the 
master who pays and the servant who receives what is just 
and equal, (a fair equivalent,) for his services. This is the 
relation which the apostles establish, because there is nothing 
in it incompatible with the gospel, and it tears up slavery by 
the roots. 

Thus much for some of the chief gronnds which it is sup- 
posed the Bible furnishes for the continuance of slavery. 
You will see I have thought hints would be sufficient, and that 
I have not carried out the arguments to the extent of which 
they are susceptible. This I leave for you; knowing how 
capable you are of doing it, from your intimate acquaintance 
with the scriptures, your habits of ii;tellectual exercise, and 
your desire to know the truth that you may do your duty. 

But is there not among ns a large number who, advancing a 
step further than those who equip themselves in the armor of 
the gospel, acknowledge that "slavery is criminal" in the 
sight of God; that it cannot be palliated; that it is injustice, 
theft, robbery ; that it gives rise to atrocities which even to 



10 JAMES G. BIKNEY's 

think of make the cheeks burn; yet insist that "/iou; and 
xohen''^ it shall cease are question;^ by no means clear of diffi- 
culty 1 Against such doclrine as this, so replete with fallacy, 
and tendnig to bring upon the cause of truth a reproach that 
it does not merit, and an injury whose extent cannot be fore- 
seen, I wisli to enter my protest. It certainly requires no 
common boldness to take the position before an enlightened 
community, that an acknowledged sin — one proved to be such, 
too, by God's word and providence, should not be repented of 
and forsaken at once. With what face would any of you who 
are ministers, after proving to your congregations that injus- 
tice, violence, oppression, v/ere sins in the sight of God, and 
that he had denounced a " Wo unto him that useth his neigh- 
bor's service wilho^U icagc.s, and givcihlnrn nought for his work,''^ 
tell thom " how and when" tlics'e sins were to be repented of 
was a matter not clear of difficulty ] If white men were the 
sufferers from the perpetration of such sins, all would declare 
that the questions were clear of doubt. And is it true that 
when committed against the negro slave, God looks upon them 
as less criminal and authorizes a diflrrent measure to be meted 
out, and a reasoning sui generis to be applied '\ Would you 
not rather tell them, as the Savior and all his true ministers 
since have done, '^repent'''' — not to-morrow, or next day, but — 
now; and by restoring at one. what has been withheld by in- 
justice, and fraud, and force, do works that consist with repent- 
ance and prove its sincerity] You would not, surely, at this 
time of day, in the present stale of mental pliilosov)hy and re- 
ligious science in the Presbyterian church, tell your congre- 
gations that they have been committing sin for a long time, 
are doing so now, and yet say to them, all you ask as the am- 
bassador of God is, that they prepare to repent, that is, that 
they prepare to leave it oQ'some ten, fifteen, or twenty years 
hence; or if any of them should in the meantime be hurried 
to their dread account, their cliildren or posterity will do it 
for tbem. You would not declare to them, all your Master 
required was,t!iar they should come to a full conviction of the 
sin now, but that from fear of loss, of the world, of the charge 
of fanaticism, of disparagement in fashionable estimation, of 
personal convenience, or of giving any shock to the structure 
of society, they might practise it until God in his own good 
time should remove tlie matter out of the way. This I am 
confident you would not do ; and yet, is not this the very doc- 
trine that is preached when i^lavery is acknowledged to be sin, 
but that it is to cease at some f tit k re time? 

But this has been found too bold for any but llio most de- 
termined slaveholder. It has therefore been much modified 
in its dress by saying, "There are no specific connnands in 
the IJible on the subject of slavery, resembling those on adul- 



SECOND LETTER. 11 

tery, theft, &c., that it is abohshed in the Bible under the 
general commands, Do unto others as ye would that others 
should do unto you, &c., and in fuliilling these commands it is 
our duty to take into consideration the prohahle consequences 
of our conduct." And has it come to this in the Presbyterian 
church, th;it a duty which is clearly ascertained to fall under 
the general command above quoted, nsay be postponed on that 
account ; and that its performance is less imperative than the 
performance of such as are specified ; and that a man who at 
one fell swoop has robbed another of all his rights as a fellow- 
being, and put him into the road to death, is not bound to as 
expeditious restitution as he who has stolen from his rich 
neighbor a sixpence ! — that in the first case, the aggressor may 
take time to consider the probable consequences to his own 
estate, his name and standimy in society, and more than this, 
whether restitution of all his rights will not be injurious to the 
sufferer, and whether it would not be better for him, as he is 
accustomed to it, to remain crushed and trodden down, and that 
his posterity come into the enjoyment of the rights that have 
been wrested from him, whilst in the latter he is bound to 
immediate restitution ? I will venture to say, if these be the 
prevailing homilies of our church, the sooner she loses her 
name, and individuality, and influence, the better for the coun- 
try and the world. 

I will now proceed to examine, very briefly, some of the 
parts of that alchymy by which the leopard has been made to 
change his spots, the contrivances of men to put aside the 
claims of God, and sin to become no longer sin.* I shall con- 
sider the objection — 

1. That slaves are not qualified for freedom. — AVherever I go 
among the slaveholders of our cliurch, this excuse is rife ; and 

* It is an inquiry not devoid of interest, though by no means very flattering to 
human pride, to trace how readily, arguments for slavcholding' accommodate 
themselves to circumstances. At first, men are to be enslaved for tlie good of 
their souls ; when any attempt is made for their moral and intellectual elevation, 
the slaveholder insists that it has no other tendency than to make the slaves 
unhappy and himself insecure. When from the increasing light of Christianity 
its professors become ashamed any longer to persist in the plea of brutifying their 
fellow-men, that they might hold them as slaves ; and some stir is made by the 
friends of liberty and the country towards emancipation, the Christian slaveholder 
cries out, " Not yet I not yet '. for the world, not yet I it will be the ruin of the 
slaves if they are set free noio ; the present generation are very ignorant, totally 
unqualified for freedom, the next will be prepared, and then what every body 
so much desires can be done advantageously and profitably for all concerned." 
This puts the whole atfair to rest again. All becomes calm and tranquil. The 

? resent generation of slaves go to their audit, the masters die and are buried, 
'he next generation that was to exhibit full preparation for liberty, comes on the 
scene with a new generation of masters. When the latter are reminded of the 
promises of their progenitors, they vociferate the cry they have inherited with 
their slaves, "Not yet ! not yet ! by no means this generation; they will ruin 
themselves ; the next we knew will be prepared fully," d'c. &c. So it will go on 
to the last syllable of recorded time, or till " not yet 1 be drowned in the craslring 
thunders of heaven's judgments. 



12 JAMES G. BIRNEY's 

and it has been made so long and so loud, as to be thought 
fairly conclusive of the whole matter. It is very much of the 
same nature with the objection that was made to Catholic 
emancipation in Ireland, by the ecclesiastical and civil aris- 
tocracy of Great Britain. What answer would such objectors 
have made to the corps of opponents to one of the most mag- 
nanimous acts of tlie British government, when it was alleged 
that all the institutions of the country would be broken up, 
and even religion itself could not be maintained under the 
malignant influence of Catholic emancipation ; tluit the vice 
and ignorance of the Catholics (continued at least, if not in 
some measure produced, by Protestant persecutors,) would 
break down every salutary barrier ; and that they were only 
qualified for living under the restraints in which they had been 
reared ? Or to the Autocrat of the Russias who should plead 
in justification of his recent carnage of the Poles, that this 
portion of his subjects are totally unqualified for any other 
government than the one which is crushing them into the dust ; 
that the tyranny which he exercises over them is not of his 
own enactment, but that it has been entailed upon him ; and 
that although desiring all good to this portion of his unfortu- 
nate subjects, he is still under the necessit}^ of keeping up the 
old system of oppression to which they have become accus- 
tomed ; but tVat in having it imposed upon him by his ancestors, 
and being thus as it were compelled to maintain it, he is the 
most unfortunate of men, deserving commiseration instead of 
blame 1 Would such reasons as these be received with any 
portion of tolerance T Would they not be considered as founded 
in the most profound ignorance of the constitution of the 
human mind, or to be the shallow excuses of the rankest 
hypocrisy ] 

God has formed all men for freedom, just as surely as he 
has fitted them, in their physical conformation, for the pure 
air of the ambient heavens. Freedom is man's appropriate 
element ; that in which he acts best, and in which he shows 
most of mental and moral life. All others are unjiat\n*al, un- 
healthy, and tend to produce death, the death of the whole 
being; and they are the devices of " man's inhumanity to 
man." That the first part of this proposition is true we may 
easily satisfy ourselves ; for which we are deprived ot liberty, 
nature is ever trying to regain it ; she finds nothing that can 
be received in exchange for it ; and just as unerringly desires 
to escape from chains as she does to withdraw from the foul 
and pestilential atmosphere of a charnel-house. Do we not 
then say to God, when in his word and through his judgments 
he thunders in our ears, "Let this people go that they may 
serve me," " They can serve thee better as slaves than in the 
condition for which thou didst form them." Again, what 



SECOND LETTER. 13 

has disqualified the slave for freedom — his natural state 1 The 
chains that we have cast upon him. Is it a reasonable course 
then to prolong a condition, all whose results, down to the 
present moment, have been disqualification for freedom, with 
the expectation that it will yet, after the failure of our experi- 
ment for two hundred years, bring forth fruits that consist 
"with freedom ] Shall we be careful daily to make the chains 
more secure, and hypocritically tempt God with our prayers 
that he may remove them ] If this excuse be a good one nowy 
and slavery be continued, producing no other fruits than such 
as it has already yielded ; it will be good next year, next lus- 
trum, next century ; and slavery with all its horrors is made 
perpetual. Are you willing to say Amen ? But it is said in 
avoidance, that although the present adults are, and must 
continue through the remainder of their lives, unqualified for 
freedom, and therefore shoul i remain in slavery ; v»"e can qualify 
their children for freedom by bestowing upon them a suitable 
education, and rearing them under the influence of the hopes 
and expectations of freemen. This enticing humanity was 
proclaimed by the slaveholders of Kentucky thirty years ago, 
to my knowledge ; how long before I know not. How care- 
fully this pledge has feen redeemed, is proved by the fact 
that the generation which was then commencing and that was 
to be qualified for freedom, have grown up, and are the very 
persons upon whose vice, and ignorance, and disqualification 
at this time, the excuse for continuing slavery is founded. 
But we will pass this by, and examiiie with what fidelity we 
are redeeming our pledge of preparing their successors, the 
present youthful generation, for frc' dom. A few of our people 
buy primers, spelling-books, and Testaments, for them ; and 
on Sunday morning or afternoon they are instructed for an 
hour or two, by the children or the junior members of the 
white family, in the elements of reading. In a few of the 
towns and villages. Sabbath Schools for the blacks are estab- 
lished, in which they receive instruction for an hour, or an 
hour and a half. This comprises all or nearly all the means 
that are in operation to prepare the rising generation of blacks 
for freedom. There are day schools for the free colored people, 
one at Louisville and another at Lexington ; if any slaves are 
sent to them for education, I am uninformed of the fact. Now> 
I ask you, if you believe that there are out of the whole num- 
ber of colored people in this state, (amounting to probably, 
200,000,) 5,000 who are receiving elementary instruction in 
reading (rom private efforts and the Sabbath Schools together! 
Are there in your opinion half that number v*'ho can read the 
Bible understandiigly and with ease ? Are there ojie thousand 
who, in addition to facility in reading English, can write a 
hand sufficiently legible for the transaction of the plainest 
2 



14 JAMES G. BIRNEY S 

business? Are there one hundred who add to reading and 
writing, as above, a competent knowledge of arithmetic, as 
far as the rule of three ] I suppose these questions must all 
be answered in the negative. I know not one, either person- 
ally or from information, who can read, write, and cypher. I 
do not pretend to precision of knowledge on this point ; and 
if I am in error I shall gladly receive correction from those 
who have more accurate information. The conclusion to 
which my mind has been brought on the subject of preparation, 
is corroborated by this fact, that there is not, so far as my 
knowledge extends after careful inquiry, even among its most 
strenuous advocates, any regular deduction made from the 
time of field-labor or domestic service of their slaves, to be- 
stow upon thejn this preparation. Now, brethren, judging from 
the experience of the past, and our knowledge of the present, 
of what weight is the excuse for continuing slavery, based 
upon " preparation 1" Is it saying more than the naked facts 
will warrant, that its advocates, whatever they may intend, 
act for the perpetuation of slavery 1 If so, are you willing to 
unite in such action, or to continue it for another day ? 

2. But we are wiUing to give up our slaves, if every body 
else will ; or if they all can be removed from the country. 
Whoever says this, subjects his sincerity to violent suspicion. 
The condition in each case, though not physically, is morally 
impossible ; and it would not be more unreasonable to say, 
that you would give up your slaves if the sun would cease to 
shine. You are a preacher — pressing upon an impenitent 
friend the necessity of personal holiness ; he replies to all 
your earnestness, that he will submit to God in doing his will 
if all his neighbors will go with him. What now would you 
think of his head or his heart, or his manners ? As to remov- 
ing the slaves from Kentucky, sit down and make the calcu- 
lation of their present numbers, probably 200,000; their yearly 
increase, say 5,000 : consider what has been done towards 
removing them for the last six or seven years, during which 
period the Meory of colonization has been favorably cherished 
by our countrymen ; that there have been removed only about 
150 — nearly, if not quite half of whom died on the passage to 
x\frica, and in the seasoning of her deadly climate ; calculate 
the cost of removal and of six or twelve months' maintenance 
of 5,000 annually, after their arrival on the shores of that con- 
tinent ; calmly contemplate the nature of the public mind 
which it is indispensable should be brought up to a full ap- 
proval of the scheme ; and after doing all this, if you still think 
the plan of removal is the most practicable one for the extin- 
guishment of slavery, or that it is practicable at all for this 
purpose, I have not another word to address to you on the 
subject. The mind that could be led to such a conviction, 



SECOND LETTER. 15 

after duly considering the facts, is too far gone in lave with a 
darling schem* to be reasoned with. 

3. But 10 e fear amalgamation — or in other words, that there 
will be intermarriages between the whites and the colored 
people. Although I look upon this objection as unsuitable 
altogether to a manly mind, that has been careful to enlighten 
itself on this subject, and impartially to reach its conclusions 
upon all — and upon amalgamation as having no natural con- 
nexion whatever with the concession to our slaves of their 
rights as men, yet, believing that it weighs somev/hat with 
honest minds which have not taken enlarged views of the 
consequences of emancipation ; and that it is frequently used 
with no despicable effect by the opponents of all efforts in 
favor of freedom ; I shall not, as T had at first intended, pass 
it by entirely unnoticed. I have said that amalgamation has 
no natural connexion with emancipation : neither has it, any 
more than the assumption by the emancipated of any other 
of the powers belonging to our civil or social relations. 
Who fears the blacks will, if emancipated, become our school- 
masters, our college professors, our preachers, our lawyers, 
or our physicians 1 — No one. AVhy I Simply because they 
would, on account of their ignorance and total want of lite- 
rary or scientific qualification, be totally incompetent { there- 
fore, there would be on their part, no aspiration to the offices, 
and on ours there would very justly and very certainly be 
exclusion from them, if they should aspire while deficient in 
merit. Now, from the superior tenderness and delicacy of 
the marriage relation, and from the greater care we exercise 
lest our friends and connexions enter into it miworthily, I 
entertain the opinion that alliances of this kind would be far 
less successfully sought by the colored people, than the public 
stations awhile ago men4;ioned. Many of us would be well 
contented with persons as schoolmasters, preachers, lawyers, 
or physicians, with whom we would have insurmountable 
objections, (leaving out of view personal likings or dislikings,) 
to contract the marriage relation. Now, when to ignorance, 
degradation of caste, and a great deficiency of those qualifi- 
cations, intellectual, moral and pecuniary, which secure social 
equality, is added that physical repugnance on the part of the 
whites, so earnestly alleged, it seems to me that a stronger 
barrier of defence in the premises could not be erected. If 
you and every one else fear and repel amalgamation, you and 
they will be safe from its danger. For we may rest very 
secure in the belief, at least so long as there is an equality 
of sexes among the colored people, that Sabine violence at- 
tempted against us by a concerted movement of the black 
ladies and gentlemen, will not be the world's gossip during 
the present century. It is very certain, that so strong would 



16 

be the prejudice against amalg-amation by the present gene- 
ration of adults, and probably for several to come, that even 
the valor of a Sesostris, or the charms of a Cleopatra, could 
not overcome it. And it does appear to my poor judgment 
scarcely a sufficient reason for continuing a great trespass 
against our fellow-men, because some hundred years hence, 
a prince-royal of Jamaica, or the duke of Barbadoes, the 
countess of Porto Rico, or one of the royal maids of Cuba, 
dressed " in the livery of the burnished sun," may overcome 
it in the person of one of our great-great-great-grand-children. 
It is difficult to treat such an objection with the seriousness 
becoming the subject. Being nothing of a match-maker my- 
self, and knowing no one in all the circle of my acquaintance 
who is in the least peril on this ground, I have not considered 
it as possessing the least solidity, 

4. But if we set our slaves free among us, they will turn 
round and cut our throats. This would be bad enough, truly. 
But do you entertain any serious apprehension of such a re- 
sult 1 For if you do, I shall be compelled to attribute it either 
to conscious guilt for bad treatment of your slaves, or to a 
total want of mai'.hood. We have succeeded thus far in 
keeping in subjection these people, whilst committing against 
them the greatest trespass that man can commit against his 
fellow, whilst withholding from them rights for which men 
in all ages have hazarded life, fortune and honor ; and yet, 
when we restore those rights peaceably and kindly, it •= most 
stoutly maintained that they to whom they are restur*. '. will 
turn and rend us. This is surely unsound philosophy-— alto- 
gether at variance with the laws of mind, as well as with his- 
torical facts. For I am very sure that those who insist upon 
the objection may safely be challenged to produce a single 
well-authenticated instance to show, that dangerous or even 
inconvenient consequences have followed the sudden eman- 
cipation of large bodies of slaves. Now I am by no means 
so sanguine as to indulge the belief, that in emancipation will 
be found a 'panacea for all the ills that fle«h is heir to ; but 
that they will ultimately be immeasurably diminished by it, I 
cannot for one moment doubt. And I wish it always borne 
in mind whilst we are discussing that part of the subject 
which relates to the expedienc}^ of emancipation, that it is 
not the introduction of a new and untried evil, where none 
of kindred character existed previously; but that it is the 
substitution of an evil, in the opinion of its advocates, light 
and transient when compared with the evil of slavery, whose 
ultimate tendency, in the judgment of all considerate men, 
who have weighed it, is to crush us. 

Now, to every one of you who is a slaveholder, and in 
whose mind exists an apprehension of the danger predicted 



SECOND LETTERo w 17 

in lh(3 objection, I am bold to offer some means of defence 
from all harm. Say, you have become convinced that slavery, 
as it exists among us, is a sin before God ; that you have re- 
pented of your own guilt in this matter, and are now anxious 
to show fruits that consist with repentance ; you summon 
before you your servants — the fathers and mothers, and such 
others of them as may be old enough to understand an expla- 
nation of the principles upon which you are about to act ; 
you say to them, j-ou have become convinced that the bonds 
in which you have held them are inconsistent with the law 
of love to our neighbor, enjoined by God upon every man ; 
and that moved by the sacred authority of the religion you 
profess, you have determined to continue the sin no longer. 
With this you read and then deliver to them, accurately au- 
thenticated deeds of manumission for themselves and their 
children. You further say to them, " As I have already given 
to you the most convincing proof I can furnish of my friend- 
ship, it is not my intention to push j^ou out of my doors, de- 
siring never to see you again — exposed to the impositions of 
a world with whose business you are in a great measure un- 
acquainted, or to the prejudice and scorn of such as cherish 
for you no kind sympathy ; no, if you choose to remain in 
my employment, I will pay you what is just and equal, a fair 
equivalent for your services. I will continue to feel for you 
the love, and extend to you the conduct of a Christian ; I 
will assist you in providing the means of educating your chil- 
dren for usefulness in hfe, and should you so choose, in bind- 
ing them out to profitable trades and employments ; and I 
will be your sure and steadfast friend, and your protector so 
long as your conduct shall not render it improper for me to 
be so." I ask you, now, if after doing this, and kneeling 
down with them at the footstool of God's throne to thank 
him for the Christian courage he he has bestowed upon you, 
and to implore his blessing upon the down-trodden and the 
poor, in their new estate, you would fear the flames of the 
incendiary, or the knife of the assassin? Hateful as is to 
many the very name of abolition, here it is in its essence — 
and its safety is sure, because it is the offspring and the ex- 
hibition of benevolence. 

Well, after all this you say, " What can we do 1" I answer, 
you can rise up to-morrow and liberate all whom you hold in 
bondage. " But," you reply, " what effect would this have 
upon the great body of slaveholders in the state T' I will 
undertake to affirm, that by such a course, small as is your 
number, you will have crucified the giant sin of our land ; his 
dying struggles may be fierce and long protracted, but his dis- 
s»^jlution will be certain, because the death-blow will have 
I Ven given. The ministers and rulers of any of the larger 



18 JAMES G. BIRNEy's SECOND LETTER. 

denominations of Christians have it iii their power to-morrow 
to give the fatal wound to slavery in Kentucky — and if in 
Kentucky, throughout the slaveholding region of the Union — 
for how would the congregations over which God has placed 
them, and upon whom they would then be authorized to press 
this subject with all its overpowering weight, upon sound con- 
sciences and Christian hearts, stand in the blaze of such vir- 
tuous action and not be consumed or won by it 1 If it were 
to prevail among Presbyterians alone, how long could the 
other denominations hold their fellow-men in bondage ^ Not 
twelve months, as I honestly believe. If then you will come 
up to the next Synod, after having " loosed the bands of wick- 
edness, undone the heavy burdens, let the oppressed go free, 
and broken every yoke," so far as you are concerned you have 
the promise of the Lord that " your light shall break forth as 
the morning, and thy health spring forth speedily ; that thy 
righteousness shall go before thee, and the glory of the Lord 
be thy reward." You may, it is true, be called madmen ; but 
Paul was so called before you. You may be called fanatics, 
fools, and knaves ; but Sharp, Clarkson, and Wilberforce, were 
so baptised by the enemies of humanity; you may at first 
obtain but little honor from men ; but you will win an eternal 
weight of glory from God. That you may be influenced by 
Him so to act, is the earnest desire of your friend and brother^ 

Jx\MES G. BIRNEY. 
Mercer County, Ky. Sept. 2d, 1834. 



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